Unless you belong to it, the world of marketing could seem a little dull. Isn’t it just about selling stuff? Well, yes it is – but there’s a lot more to selling stuff than just handing over the product and taking the payment. You have to find your customers first, then you have to persuade them they want what you’re selling – that’s where marketing comes in to play, and there are a million and one ways to attract attention and create heat around something you want to promote.
If you have a new product or service you want to tell the world about, getting to grips with marketing is an essential part of the journey. Because of the many diverse approaches and techniques out there, it’s wise to speak with marketing consultants prior to launching a new product. And it’s not just fledgling projects marketing helps, if your current strategy isn’t producing results an appraisal by expert marketing consultants can re-energise and re-focus a tired and lacklustre campaign.
Businesses that forge ahead without a clear marketing strategy tend to get poor results. To help you avoid repeating the mistakes of others, here’s a look at four common marketing fails…
Market Research Blindness
A failure to appreciate the value of thorough market research and testing is a real beginners’ mistake and usually happens only once. Exercising a degree of natural caution is a given in most areas of our lives, but for some reason when it comes to business, we get blinkered and just plunge right in without looking. Such a risky approach is foolhardy in the extreme – you need to know the market for your product or service before investing money and time into a venture. Skimping on this vital first page rule could spell doom for your idea.
Ignoring Repeat Business
The stats speak for themselves, around 80 percent of your business is from existing customers and 20 per cent comes from new clients, harnessed with marketing. Ignore your existing core customers at your peril – treat them well and keep them coming back. It takes five times more marketing budget to hook in new clients, than it does to retain current ones – think about this for a moment and let it focus your mind.
Not Pushing Your USP
USP, or Unique Selling Proposition is what sets you apart from everyone else. It’s something the competition can’t beat you on, and you need to push it hard. A weak, vague or unfocused USP will confuse rather than attract new clients and ultimately they’ll move on quickly to the competition. If you’re struggling with this, the professional expertise of marketing consultants can be invaluable – they will swiftly be able to drill down into the core of your business and find a succinct way of representing it that really garners attention.
Failure to Embrace Technological Innovation
The world of technology moves at a lightning fast pace, and new innovations are coming on stream all the time. The internet and social media has been a massive game-changer in marketing and one of the biggest mistakes of older, established players is that they don’t keep up. Failing to embrace technological innovation in the current market singles you out as a Luddite, not a great brand message.
So what developments should you be looking out for in the coming year? Many new innovations are ripe for exploitation in the marketing field. In 2015 the rise of wearable devices, quantified-self products (personal data gatherers to help us monitor and improve performance in all areas), improved localisation and beacon tracking which could re-energise the stalled bricks and mortar retail scene, greater connectivity and augmented reality are all going to be big on the radar. How exactly marketers can adapt and exploit these new technologies is still up for discussion, but don’t get left behind; be at the forefront of cutting edge technologies – early adopters catch the biggest worms, remember!
There you have four marketing minefields mapped out, so you can hopefully avoid them. Whatever it is you are hoping to promote to the world, you’ll get nowhere if nobody knows about it. So for improving discoverability, reinforcing brand message and selling stuff like there’s no tomorrow, get to grips with the marketing world, it’s really not as dull as you think…
